“Well, I’m not sleeping with him.”
“Want to bet on it?”
“Oh, my God, I’m not betting on when I’m having sex with a guy.”
“So, you are going to have sex with him? You just don’t know when?” he teased.
I groaned. “No. God, no. I don’t want to have sex with him.”
“Then why bother dating him?” Trevor asked, grinning.
I slapped his shoulder shaking my head, and he flicked soapy water at me.
“Trevor?” It was a girl’s voice out in the hallway.
I lifted my brows and he cursed under his breath. “Breakfast for a week,” he said.
I shook my head. “No. I’m not doing it again. It’s mean, and you were an ass for picking up my phone.”
“I’ll owe you,” he said. “You can call it in at any time. And by the sounds of it, you’re going to need it.”
“So like what?”
“Anything.”
“Anything?”
He grinned. “Yep. Even sex.”
“Gross,” I muttered because Trevor was like a brother to me.
“Trevor?” the girl called again.
I sighed. “God, fine. But I’m holding you to the anything.”
He smirked and grabbed the flowered dishtowel off the hook beside the fridge and picked up a plate to dry it.
I walked to the door and opened it to see a gorgeous, curvy blonde standing in the hallway looking over the railing. There was a purpose to Trevor leaving his door open when he came into my place. He hoped the girl would just leave. This one was hanging onto the idea that he’d be back for her. He wouldn’t.
“Trevor left,” I said.
She wore his Toronto Raptors jersey that hung to midthigh. Trevor wouldn’t be impressed she was wearing his favorite basketball team’s shirt.
“But his door was open,” she said with confusion.
God, I hated this and I was enabling him in his slutty ways. Trevor had to get his shit together.
“Yeah.” I shook my head sighing and pursed my lips. It wasn’t my best performance, but she wasn’t even looking at me as she examined her leg for some reason. “I heard him on the phone as he ran out. Something about his mom being in the hospital.” Trevor’s mother lived in California on the beach with her latest squeeze.
Her eyes widened. “Oh. Hmm, okay. Do you think he’ll be back soon?”
I just told her his mom was in the hospital. But only twenty percent of the girls I told this story to ever asked if his mom was okay. Those were the ones I felt bad for. “His mother lives in California.”
“Oh. Do you have his cell number? I’ll call him later.” Trevor’s other rule, never ever give out his cell number to the girls he brings home.
“No, I don’t. But I’d be happy to give him yours and tell him you dropped by.” I played it like I had no clue she’d stayed the night.
She flicked her hair over her shoulder, but it was too short to be flicked, so it swung back in exactly the same place. “No. I’ll leave him a note under his pillow.”
“Good idea,” I offered, smiling. A guy like Trevor loves a girl leaving her number under his pillow.
I shut my apartment door.
Trevor lounged on the couch, bare feet on the coffee table, ankles crossed while he flicked channels on the TV.
“You know, one day the lies are going to slap you in the face, and when it does, I hope it knocks you off your feet.”
“Babe, I’m clear with them before I fuck them. Not my issue if they think I’m so good they want second and thirds. And my mom does live in California.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Yeah, but she’s not sick. And you’re eating pancakes and watching TV across the hall. I’m not doing it again.”
He patted the back of the couch with his hand. “Sit. This shit with the rock star is fucking with your head. The chick will clear out in ten and I’ll get out of your hair.”
I walked over and sat, curling my legs beneath me. “Seriously, Trevor. I’m not covering for you anymore.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. But I still want to come over and have breakfast.”
“Fine, but you need to learn to make eggs benedict.”
Past Ireland
“Look at him.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, turning my head. I didn’t want to. I hated looking at the pictures.
Da twisted my arm behind my back, his fingers digging into my skin. I sucked in air at the pain then fell to my knees.
“Look, damn it.”
I did. I looked at the picture laying on the floor in the bedroom. My brother’s bedroom.
Empty. No sound of his laughter. No train running on its tracks. No superheroes flying through the air as he ran around the room making a zoom sound.
God, he’d wanted to be a superhero. To fly away whenever he wanted. To punch through steel. To be invisible.
And now I knew why. So people wouldn’t look at him with pity and kids wouldn’t make fun of him.